Tag Archives: Eleftherotypia

The guy in the photo (right) is Angel Gurría, general secretary of OECD. When he last met Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras (left) last November he congratulated him for managing to bring Greece in the top position, internationally, of the list with the countries carrying out structural reforms.

These reforms were supposed to improve the way the Greek economy functions but also to rationalise the Greek public sector. Last summer, the Greek government had decided to suddenly close down ERT, the Greek Radio & TV Broadcasting company. The idea of firing all of a sudden around 2,500 employees was that ERT was a corrupt and expensive public organisation. At the beginning there was absolutely no plan – after the huge public pressure and uproar that ERT closure’s caused, the government announced that there would be a new state broadcaster created soon. It would more efficient than ERT, cheaper and more transparent.

Almost a year later, a few days ago, Eleftherotypia newspaper published the cost of a show that is now being broadcasted by NERIT, ERT’s kitsch and unpopular successor. It’s a new version of a show about tourism (that used to exist during ERT), trying to convince Greeks to spend their summer (money) in Greece rather than abroad. As if there is enough income distributed in the society for international plane tickets. Anyway, back to the show, here’s its budget.

On the left column you can see the people hired for the show (by specialty) and on the right you can see their payment (for the 2-month period which this contract is valid for). In the country where the minimum wage is down to around 500 euros per month, there is a journalist who will be paid 5.208 euros for reading the text messages that viewers send to the show. Out of the 11 people that will compose the journalistic part of the team, two will be handling the social media, each also paid 5.208 euros for these two months. The same will be the payment for the person who will be responsible to call and book the guests of the show while the editor-in-chief of the show will receive 8.060 euros. For two fucking months! That’s efficiency and rationalisation of ERT’s costs.

And if you want to compare with ERT’s already high wages [compared to the rest of the media market] the guest-booker in the old version of the show (at ERT) was earning about 30% less than the current NERIT’s payment.

As for increased transparency, these people have been hired without a some kind of competition, no job vacancy announcement, no evaluation of applicants.

A vicious circle, creating worst monsters than the ones we had in a supposed attempt to modernise, to get improved, to restructure [sic].

Back in his December 2013 visit, Angel Gurría had also met Evangelos Venizelos, the Frank Underwood of the Greek political scene. After the many congrats for Greece’s obediency, the OECD general secretary told him a sibyllic ‘There’s life after debt” which kept me wondering what the hell he was trying to say.

I get it now. There is indeed going to be life after the austerity. Those who get paid 5.000 euros for reading text messages will survive. The rest will have to emigrate abroad. Those who can afford their basic medication will survive. Unlike the woman in Lesvos who died last week [inside the local hospital!!!] simply because she couldn’t afford her medicines for hypertension.

There will be more international congratulations for this government and for these policies that cause such collateral damage. The elections are approaching and Samaras has invited everybody to congratulate him so that Greeks can be convinced that we’re on the right track, that we are exiting the crisis. Angela Merkel will be the next one with her visit planned in the coming days. Others will surely follow. They should all feel responsible if this vicious circle continues.

If the future historian will try to describe Golden Dawn’s course to mainstream politics and its attempt to consolidate its presence there, he will most probably be able to write about a very organized plan. He will have the luxury to connect the dots. These dots is what we are living these years, it’s the news coming from the far-right camp, digested easily one by one.

The racist attacks is a good example. A previously rare news item has almost become a daily thing. No one is surprised. The violence in public display (see the slapping of Communist MP Liana Kanelli on tv, the bullying outside Chyterio theatre, etc) is another example which, by now, has easily been digested by many. I remember Kanelli after an unsuccessful prank by some comedians who disguised like Golden Dawn thugs and “ambushed” her in a corridor of SKAI TV. She went back to the studio and, in tears, warned that if Golden Dawn’s violence becomes a joke, this will mean that we have accepted it as a new reality.

Dimitris Hantzopoulos – Ta Nea newspaper (28-02-13)

The next dot in the plan is the consolidation of last year’s gains. Golden Dawn has drawn all the centre-right and far-right voters it could attract. Now they must look into the future, the kids. Step 1: High Schools. Some weeks ago I started researching the story for an international documentary. I spoke with several teachers and they were all complaining about kids flirting with the far-right. Some for joke, others for bullying, in the end they would mention “patriotism”. A friend of mine, a teacher at an Athens High School, gave a lecture to his class about Golden Dawn’s attacks and practices. A kid stood up and told him: “You are not allowed to talk politics in here, sir!”. He was surprised. I asked him if he stopped and he told me: “Of course not! I simply started talking to them about Nazism” . Some weeks later one of his students described to him the good time he had when he went to Golden Dawn’s annual march.

By Kostas Koufogiorgos Eleftherotypia (28-02-13)

Last week, my very good colleague and friend, Yannis Papadopoulos, wrote for TA NEA newspaper a scathing report about Golden Dawn’s intrusion into Greek schools. I’m translating an excerpt from his article.

… Apostolis and his friends were waiting for me outside the school’s entrance. This is where he carried out his first attack. His hands are in his pockets, his face has that teenage touch. He is 15 years old and he beats immigrants. “Whenever we see a Pakistani, we hunt him down” he says. “If Golden Dawn has reasons to do so, so do we”. Right here the hunting begins as soon as the school ends.

“I’ve seen him standing over that pole. I ran and fell over him, together with another guy and we started beating him” says Apostolis. “I have beaten several of them. Ten, fifteen. Something like that. When the teachers at school find out I usually lie, saying that I was provoked… We are not Golden Dawn members, we do this as a hobby. Everyone without papers must be beaten” says George, 14 years old.

17 year old Dimitris, a Golden Dawn member from another Athens school says “Sooner or later these kids will too join Golden Dawn”.

Two days ago, Golden Dawn revealed Step 2. They posted on their official website a text and some photos that took things even further. To younger ages.

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The event was paradoxically called “Kids’ conformation”, after a famous 20th century magazine whose most famous editor in chief was Grigorios Xenopoulos, himself a socialist. According to Golden Dawn, the kids were taught by trained teachers who somehow managed to fit in one class topics like the ancient Greek Thought, the ancient Gods of Olympus and the Christian Faith. Whatever help this nation stay together.

“… and then Alexander the Great made the sign of the Cross and attacked the Turks by saying “I’ll f**ck you, you Albanian fag**ts!!!” by Panos Zacharis (October 2012)

I am living in the present. And these news stories are just dots. If you ask me “Do you know where all this is going at?”, I will say No. But it rings some bells.

I simply hope that the future historian will be living in an a country free enough to write about it.

The co-ruling PASOK party had its national conference today. Its goal is to elect the new party leader who will succeed George Papandreou and will lead the Socialists in the coming elections. The candidates are Christos Papoutsis and Evangelos Venizelos. At some point, an old man, member of PASOK himself, approached Venizelos, complained about the cuts in his pension and then threw him a yogurt before being carried out by bodyguards outside the hall.

This is the latest in a series of food throwing that has reemerged during the past two years of the crisis as a means of political protest.

Greek yogurt

Originally, “yogurt throwing” was a means of protest against authority by Greek youngsters in the late 1950s. They were called “Teddy Boys”, a name borrowed from the homonymous British subculture. You see, food throwing was traditionally a form of protest (preferable rotten eggs or tomatoes) but it was only in 1950s when the plastic cup substituted yogurt’s classic ceramic pot, a marketing move that made yogurt a non-lethal weapon. The trend of yogurt-throwing was fiercely fought by the authorities with the legendary “Law 4000/1958” according to which offenders were arrested, had their heads shaved and paraded through the streets of Athens.

A teddy boy is paraded in the streets of Athens with his head shaved.

The law also inspired a movie (Law 4000). Here’s a great excerpt that needs no subtitles.

The law was withdrawn in 1983, by Andreas Papandreou. In 1997, a builder who was member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) threw a yogurt on the then Minister of Employment, Miltiadis Papaioannou (now Minister of Justice) and his then Deputy Minister Christos Protopappas (now PASOK’s Parliamentary Group Representative) . The court decided that yogurt throwing was not an offense that had to be tried automatically but only if a lawsuit is filed by the victim.

During the past two years of the Greek crisis, attacks by angry citizens against politicians have become a frequent phenomenon. At the beginning there were verbal attacks, in restaurants and in the streets. Politicians began to walk less freely in the street without bodyguards, especially after Kostis Hatzidakis, a New Democracy MP, was brutally attacked by protesters in December of 2010.

The verbal attacks are still the norm wherever politicians appear in public (e.g. see what happened in the 28th October military parades – btw these days the government had a meeting to assess the security situation in view of the 25th of March Independence Day parades) Soon food throwing reappeared. The most popular “weapons” have been yogurt, eggs and, at times, tomatoes.

According to an article of Eleftherotypia newspaper, written by Georgia Linardou, in 2011 two members of the government and one MP have been attacked with yogurts. Last March, the vice president of the government Theodoros Pangalos was attacked while having dinner at a town just outside Athens. Some months later, Minister of Interior Haris Kastanidis was attacked in a similar fashion while watching “Midnight in Paris” at a cinema in Thessaloniki. Liana Kanelli, an MP with the Communist Party of Greece, has also been attacked with yogurt in June 2011, while she was trying to get through a block of protesters in order to reach the Parliament for the vote on the Mid-Term Program.

As for attacks with eggs, the list is longer, probably thanks to the different characteristics of this sort of food when used as a missile (their position on the day of the attack):

Manolis Othonas, Deputy Minister for Citizen Protection

Ilias Mosialos, Minister of State

Kostas Skandalidis, Deputy Minister of Agriculture

Andreas Loverdos, Minister of Health

Anna Diamantopoulou, Minister of Education

Giorgos Petalotis, Government Spokesman

Also:

Asterios Rontoulis, MP with LAOS

Dora Bakoyanis, Democratic Alliance party leader

Spiros Taliadouros, MP with New Democracy

In 2010 Alekos Alavanos was also attacked, with yogurts, during SYRIZA’s campaign for that year’s local elections.

Many politicians have criticized this form of protest. KKE’s leader, Aleka Papariga, has said that yogurt-throwers are people who have voted for PASOK or New Democracy and that the act itself is not some particular act of resistance but rather a bourgeois reaction that defuses the social discontent. Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Sokratis Xinidis, preferred some self-criticism when he said “The time has come for all of us to pay the price. I am ready to be thrown a yogurt…”

There’s a great article about the presence of food in Greek politics. It’s called “Bread, Milk, and the Greek Parliamentary Record” and is written by Leo Vournelis, here. Another interesting aspect can be read in “Eating in Times of Financial Crisis” also hosted on the website of the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition.

Finally, let me remind the readers of a historical recurrence. This is the second time that Evangelos Venizelos is trying to win the leadership of PASOK. The first time was back in 2007, in a mutiny-styled manoeuvre when he appeared as a candidate practically on the same night his party, then led by George Papandreou, lost the elections. In the following days few cared about the newly elected government – the top story was what was happening inside PASOK. In those polarized (for PASOK supporters) times, another party member threw a coffee on Venizelos while he was entering the party offices.

What I still remember from that video is Venizelos’ reaction. See at 1:33 for a better a view of it. Scary isn’t it?

I just checked today’s newspapers and they had few exciting headlines. However, yesterday’s front pages would probably cause either panick or depression to a society somewhere in North Europe. As I stood there, watching all the post-apocalyptic headlines, I realized that in some years I will be saying that this is how it was to live in Greece at the end of November 2011.

Firstly, I will begin with the cover of this week’s Economist which has been reproduced, partly or as a whole, by several Greek newspapers.

Economist

“Eleftheri Ora” newspaper, which is a fringe paper that hardly sells a bit above 2.000 copies per day, has chosen to reproduce the whole Economist front page. Oh yes, with no reference at all. This paper is famous for its populist content, full of conspiracy theories, front pages of dead monks whose prophecies are now becoming reality, and so on. Actually I think that a daily translation of the paper’s front page could offer enough material for a separate blog. Anyway, when I think that usually it should be the last one in these posts of translated front pages due to its lower circulation. I only place it first here because of its relation to the Economist’s cover.

Eleftheri Ora

Title: The evil plan of the New World Order’s “Messiah”

Another newspaper which chose to use the euro meteor illustration is Dimokratia.

Dimokratia

Title: The Wehrmacht is approaching Europe

Overhead title: Everyone is talking about the coming financial Armageddon

“Ethnos” newspaper was the only one to reproduce the whole Economist front page, thus indirectly referring the source.

Ethnos

Title: A whole town is sleeping in the streets

Overhead title: Social shock – more than 20.000 homeless around Greece

Eleftherotypia and Kathimerini highlighted the continuing struggle of the Egyptians at Tahrir square.

Eleftherotypia

Title: The extra tax will be paid too by unemployed who worked even for one day (in 2011)

Picture’s caption title: Tahrir square does not succumb

Kathimerini

Title: Suffocation around the euro zone

Picture’s caption title: Egyptians overwhelm Tahrir square

Ta Nea

Title: Run Lucas Run! (a cartoon depicts Lucas Papademos in the body of Pheidippides, the first “marathon runner”)

There have been few surprises when we heard the names of those who compose the new Greek government under Lucas Papademos. As a government of national unity, everybody expected to see which members of New Democracy and LAOS parties would be selected and for which posts. New Democracy reluctantly offered its members, afraid that the new government will fail and that this failure could be partly blamed to them during the next general elections (yes, Greek politicians are still playing their little political games at this very crucial time). In this post, I decided to focus on two members of LAOS. Not the South East Asian country but the Greek far right populist party of the Popular Orthodox Rally (laos in Greek is the word for “people”, λαός). They are Mavroudis (Makis) Voridis and Adonis Georgiades.

The logo of LAOS party

Makis Voridis has been very active during his youth years in the nationalist and extreme right part of the political spectrum. Here’s some biographical data collected from already published articles.

LAOS party leader, Karatzaferis (left) with Makis Voridis (right)

He graduated from the Athens College, the same school that was attended by Lucas Papademos and the majority of the Greek political and business elite. Soon after he became General Secretary of EPEN’s youth. EPEN (National Political Union) was a far-right political party which was founded in 1984 by jailed former junta leader Georgios Papadopoulos. He substituted in that post Nikos Michaloliakos who founded and still heads the national socialist party Hrisi Avgi (Golden Dawn). “EPEN was the main vehicle for the the national, popular and social right to express its views, and it had elected a Eurodeputy. As a youth activist in the national, patriotic circle who wanted to be active politically, it was the only outlet,” Voridis has stated. He later enrolled at the Law School of Athens University and founded a group called Student Alternative. The Law School Students Union expelled him in 1985 because of his fascist activity. Greek investigative journalist team “Ios” (i.e. virus in Greek) later published a photo of Voridis from those events (9/6/2002 in Eleftherotypia newspaper). He was seen holding an axe. At a later interview, he justified it as self-defence to an attack by leftists.

In 1986 the National Union of Students (EFEE-ΕΦΕΕ) sued him for participation to a fascists’ attack against several Law School students.

The logo of the Hellenic Front party

In 1994 Makis Voridis, together with members of EPEN and ENEK (United Nationalist Movement), found the Hellenic Front party. Originally it was a small insignificant party (“the Hellenic Front’s insignificance illustrates the comparative weakness of extreme right politics in Greece” – The Guardian newspaper) before it disguised itself into more acceptable, but still far right, forms. Voridis headed the new political formation until 2005 when the party was disbanded and its leadership called its members to join the LAOS party. A year earlier, in the 2004 general elections, the Hellenic Front cooperated with another far right party, Proti Grammi (Front Line), which was headed by the most prominent far right politician and author, Kostas Plevris (his bio at Wikipedia is quite informative). His son, Thanos Plevris, is today an MP with the LAOS party.

LAOS party leader, Giorgos Karatzeferis (whose popular nickname among Greeks is KaratzaFührer) once said in an interview to Ethnos newspaper (26/10/10) in an attempt to justify why Voridis wasn’t the party’s candidate for the Athens regional governor in the 2010 local elections:

Giorogos Karatzaferis: I was simply afraid that Voridis has a history which I have managed to cover after considerable effort…Christos Machairas (journalist): What exactly do you mean by “history”?Giorgos Karatzaferis: About his relation with Jean Marie Le Pen, the axes and all the rest. I am just thinking that suddenly, on the 30th of October (i.e. a bit before the local elections) some guy from New Democracy or from Tsipras’ team (i.e. SYRIZA leftist party) can throw a video on the air and drag me explaining about all these things.

Makis Voridis is now the new Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks.

Adonis Georgiades speaking at the Greek Parliament

The second prominent member of LAOS who joined the new national unity government is Adonis Georgiades. He founded Georgiades Publications and he is Director of two magazines: History of Greeks (Ελλήνων Ιστορία) and Greek Education (Ελληνική Αγωγή).

Adonis Georgiades presenting his books' show at TeleAsty channel

He later started his own tv show in TeleCity (TeleAsty) channel, which is managed by Giorgos Karatzaferis’ party. There, Adonis Georgiades presented a show about books which was practically a 1-hour advertisement of publications that glorified the Greek past. A lot were related to ancient Greek literature and several had historical or even political subjects. Eleftherotypia (mainly the Ios investigative journalism team) and Ta Neanewspapers have accused Georgiades’ show of being a means for the promotion of nationalist and nazi-friendly content.

Kostas Plevris' book "Jews: the Whole Truth", published by Electron Editions (June 2006)

One example was his repeated advertisement of Kostas Plevris’ book “Jews: the Whole Truth”, an anti-semitic publication containing outright praises for Adolf Hitler and calls for the extermination of Jews, published by Electron Editions in June 2006. Shortly after its publication in June 2006 the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece and the Greek Helsinki Monitor brought a suit against Plevris for “insult of Jews” and “injury to Judaism”. On December 13, 2007 the court found Plevris guilty of inciting racial hatred and handed him a 14-month suspended sentence. Plevris appealed and was eventually acquitted on 27 March 2009; his acquittal caused international reactions that were very unfavorable towards the Greek judicial system, as the Greek justice system failed to enforce Greece’s antiracist legislation

In 2007 and 2009, Adonis Georgiades was elected MP with LAOS party. In 2010 local elections he was the party’s candidate for the post of Athens regional governor (after Voridis was thought to be too risky a candidate – read above).

On 11 November 2011, Adonis Georgiades was appointed Deputy Minister of Development (his sector of responsibility is Shipping).